Even softer launch

In 2024, I had aspirations to create a blog that would provide an adult perspective on the KPop industry. I had zero experience with the industry itself, but I thought that my experiences in both music and design would give me a unique perspective that I could share. Ah, the joys of being naive, huh?

Fast forward almost three years. I have now gone from the middle of 4th gen to what looks like the end of 5th gen. I've learned a ton about how the industry operates and, more importantly, how fandoms behave. With this additional information, I've decided that this blog will just be a place for me to share thoughts about Kpop, both as a diary and as a time stamp. Fandoms have very short memories, so I'm hoping this blog will serve as an artifact to assess changing trends and KPop's evolution.

So where are we right now? It's the last quarter of 2027, and a wave of summer songs have just been released by everyone from Red Velvet to Hyolyn and everyone in between. New Jeans looks like they'll be making a comeback without Danielle (thanks goodness I didn't have to blog about that mess), and Blackpink is getting to celebrate 10 years.

The various fandoms are, in a word, horrible. The combination of trolls, saesangs, and AI have ruined short form videos on TikTok and YouTube. The algorithms demand conflict, and fans have been happy to oblige. It's amazing that we haven't matured past this as a genre. Of course, no publicity is bad publicity, and conflict is the easiest form of engagement, so it's not like Hybe or YG is going to ask people to get along. LOL.

As I said, I just want to document my experiences with KPop from my point of view, so if you are actually reading this (and thank you for doing so), please understand that I am Korean-American living in the midwest, and I'm old. While I do work in design and I do have a recording studio, my experience with Kpop is the same as yours, most likely. I'm simply here for the music and visuals, so to speak.

Let's see if I can sustain this blog for a year...